Operation Barbershop - Carnage(Ax) vs. Redmarkus(Sv)

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: miller41

Great AAR and the maps are just sick

Hopefully you meant 'slick'??? [:D]

But seriously, thanks a million for the comments - greatly appreciated.

[Redmarkus5]

TURN 33 - major activities.

I am continuing the offensive into February, but with limited objectives (Smolensk and Dnepropetrovsk).

[Redmarkus5]

I can feel the enemy about to pull back around Smolensk and I believe it's a good place to put my defence line for spring 42 and a feasible goal for the last few blizzard turns.

[Redmarkus5]

Dnepropetrovsk may be a tougher nut to crack as I have fewer assets here, but I will give it a go.

Once operations around Smolensk have ceased, I will be moving at least two reserve armies south to back up my line down here

[Redmarkus5]

An attempt at a less blurry progress map - I almost have the hang of it now. This version shows the Front command boundaries and major axes of advance between turns 25 and 33.

[Redmarkus5]

TURN 33 INT ROOM DASHBOARD (AKA 'THE BODY COUNT')

[Redmarkus5]

TURN 35

(Seem to have lost all my T34 screenshots somehow...)

Incremental advances continue all along the central and southern front. Velikiye Luki (Вели́кие Лу́ки) has been liberated from the greasy paws of the fascist invader. Comrade Stalin has requested that Smolensk (Смоле́нск) be taken before the end of winter.

[Redmarkus5]

T35 - The 2nd Battle of Смоле́нск. Soviet troops can now see the outskirts of the city in the distance. The fascist invaders are huddling in the warmth of the houses seized from the common people. Soon they will feel the wrath of Soviet vengeance!

[Redmarkus5]

T35 - South. The liberation of Dnepropetrovsk is but a single battle away comrades!

[Redmarkus5]

The T35 Intelligence Assessment.

Over the course of our winter counter offensive our glorious red army has suffered an estimated 1 million casualties, while inflicting an equal number upon the invader.

The ratio of tanks losses Sov/Axis is now approaching 2/1 and this can only improve when our remodeled air force wipes the enemy from the skies in the spring.

To the West, comrades!

[Q-Ball]

I love your posters. They fill me with Revolutionary Spirit.

Anytime you can get 1-1 or anywhere close as the Soviets, that's a good thing. The Germans can't afford that kind of attrition. I don't know what "break even" is for the Germans, but somewhere above 1-1!

[DTurtle]

Well, you have to remember that the vast majority of those losses are disablements. The ratio of men killed (and thanks for all those statistics) is at 6.2:1 - if you include men captured it improves to 5.5:1.

As an additional note: Redmarkus4, your "winter to date" column is still wrong - it only calculates the losses up to turn 31.

[jomni]

ORIGINAL: Zorch

Hi,

Are you spreading your attacks too much? Do you think you might achieve more with 1 or 2 big, concentrated offensives (and a few diversionary attacks)?

You don't need to do this because soviet MP is so little. You will not gain much in concentrated offensives as you can't go far in a turn.
A general attack along all fronts is better and you have the capability of doing it by this time.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: DTurtle

Well, you have to remember that the vast majority of those losses are disablements. The ratio of men killed (and thanks for all those statistics) is at 6.2:1 - if you include men captured it improves to 5.5:1.

As an additional note: Redmarkus4, your "winter to date" column is still wrong - it only calculates the losses up to turn 31.

True, but a 6/1 ratio for the Soviets in '41 and '42 is still good vs. the historical. I would ignore the prisoner numbers as the Axis has not taken large numbers of PoWs since summer '41.

Thanks for spotting the computation error. The graphs were correct, but the table was not. It's now fixed.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: jomni

ORIGINAL: Zorch

Hi,

Are you spreading your attacks too much? Do you think you might achieve more with 1 or 2 big, concentrated offensives (and a few diversionary attacks)?

You don't need to do this because soviet MP is so little. You will not gain much in concentrated offensives as you can't go far in a turn.
A general attack along all fronts is better and you have the capability of doing it by this time.

Yes, the MP limitations make things more difficult for the Soviets than the Axis player realize. Half my army couldn't reach the front each turn with enough MP left for a deliberate attack...

[Bastables]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

FRONT

After a few attacks to test the resilience of the AGS fortified zone, I have suspended combat operations south of Vyazma. An assault in the Kuban with 9 divisions cost me 6,000 casualties vs. 175 Axis losses.

The use of forts and the checker board defence by the Axis severely reduces the capacity of the Soviets to attack successfully with 1941/2 units. I now need to:

1. Cause as much damage to AGN as possible and push it back beyond Pskov.

2. Build a defensive line that has the potential to drain the enemy of significant strength during 1942.

3. Plan for a 1943 offensive that can break though a map filled with forts by that time.

I have the AP to build forts but I rarely use them, regarding them as a-historical. I'm not entirely sure what they represent - are they combat units or engineers? My preference would be to see entrenchments being built by 'engineers' based on expenditure of AP, but all defensive operations within those entrenchments needing to be conducted by on-map combat units. So, if you build a mass of empty trenches, they are useless until filled with line units.

I think they're meant to represent the attempts to build the fortified lines after the failing of citadel, otherwise known as the Panther-Wotan lines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther-Wotan_line

They much like the Hindenburg fortifications were to be constructed behind the lines and then fallen back onto. STVAK had other ideas and overran the limited fortifications in the south.

[Redmarkus5]

TURN 36 - The battle for Smolensk continues... For the first time, Axis units are starting to rout when forcefully attacked.

[Redmarkus5]

In the south, Dnepropetrovsk has been liberated. Onward to the southwest to liberate the suffering cities of our progressive Ukrainian brothers and sisters!

[Redmarkus5]

I have already started digging in in the North. I suspect the enemy is furious about being driven back from Leningrad at such an early stage!

[DTurtle]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

True, but a 6/1 ratio for the Soviets in '41 and '42 is still good vs. the historical. I would ignore the prisoner numbers as the Axis has not taken large numbers of PoWs since summer '41.

Thanks for spotting the computation error. The graphs were correct, but the table was not. It's now fixed.

Oh, no question that your offensive is hurting him. I was just trying to point out at looking at the raw numbers gives an inaccurate (too positive) picture of the effectiveness of your offensive. The Germans lose somewhere around 50k-80k per turn just to attritional losses from the blizzards (though this lessens later in the winter), while the Soviets lose only about 5k-8k per turn from the blizzard (numbers taken from 2ndACRs AAR as it involves no combat during Blizzard). Its only the losses that go over and above this that are caused by your offensive. So, you would have to subtract roughly 500k to 700k or so from the German losses, and roughly 50k or so from the Soviet losses.

This means that your offensive caused somewhere between 300k-500k German losses, while suffering about 950k losses. So the overall exchange rate caused by your offensive is somewhere between 3:1 and 2:1 - with the additional note that even then most of the casualties caused were disablements, while the vast majority of casualties suffered were men killed.

Again, this is not to say your offensive is not working or somehow counterproductive, I just think it is better to have a more accurate view of the effectiveness of that offensive.